EDITORIAL: Training key to handling worst-case scenario

Can anyone ever be prepared for the worst-case scenario? In the event of a school shooting, the first moments will be critical for the survival rate, and the only way to prepare is with practice so intense that the participants suspend disbelief.

Although just more than half a year has passed since Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut this past December, many of us have relaxed our guard. We've gone on with our lives, as we should, and don't think every day about what could happen.

We are pleased, however, that local law enforcement continues to train for a possible Code Red in our schools. This week, using realistic replicas of firearms and smoke machines inside the otherwise empty-for-summer Bellwood-Bowdoin Preschool, emergency response workers put themselves to the test.

Murfreesboro Police Department invited the press to attend Monday's training session, and the video and photos from the experience show a professional force fighting smart against an unknown assailant. In addition to MPD, training was undertaken by the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office, Murfreesboro Fire and Rescue Department and emergency medical technicians.

"This is as close to the real thing as possible," MPD spokesman Sgt. Kyle Evans told a Daily News Journal reporter at the scene.

Scenarios involved shooters, bomb threats and role players who took the part of injured school staff. This level of realism, Evans said, is important to ensure emergency responders can deliver a "coordinated, effective response" during a life-or-death situation.

The officers, firefighters and medics learned by doing just how difficult it is to see through a haze of smoke, encumbered by their own gas masks and protective gear, straining to determine where the sound of bullets emanated.

And, they learned how to compensate for those distractions.

The training program was actually developed before Dec. 14, 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 school children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary. The training became a priority after that tragedy.

All Murfreesboro schools have gone through the training, then reviewed to see how much information the students, teachers and staff retained, Evans said. "The schools did very well."

We are glad. We encourage officials to maintain a regular schedule of training to compensate for turnover and to ensure that reactions become automatic, that no one has to stop and think before reacting to the unthinkable.

God forbid officers will ever have to put their training to use, but should the worst-case scenario happen, we want them to be ready.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

EDITORIAL: Training key to handling worst-case scenario

Can anyone ever be prepared for the worst-case scenario? In the event of a school shooting, the first moments will be critical for the survival rate, and the only way to prepare is with practice so